THE WORLD SERIES! The 36th World Series of Poker will be commencing in just a few weeks time kicking off at the Rio All Suites hotel. The events commence 25th June and run through to the final battle on the 11th August. Remember you have to be twenty one years of age to compete in the $100,000,000 WSOP. Those of you just going to railbird and watch the world’s finest poker talent shoot it out need to keep in mind that flash photography will get you tossed out by security guards fed on raw meat and doughnuts. The meat makes them tough and mean and the sugar intake messes with their heads, so play your cards right and use the available light for digital pictures. Conversely, you can catch the big names at the entrance where almost all of them are gracious enough to pose these days for a few minutes in the sweltering Las Vegas heat. I’ll be bringing you up to date with news as the big date closes in and report on the important action when it goes off. Will it be the new online gunslinger in town who goes home with a wheelbarrow full of millions or the wily old fox who’s seen it all before? Not long to wait for the showdown. See also: Predicting the 2006 World Series of Poker Winner!
FASTEN YOUR TILT-BELT Going on tilt is an over-used expression but we’ve all done it. It usually happens following a close fought hand where you are narrowly beaten to a good size pot when you are tired or otherwise not one hundred percent focused. It can also happen when you have done everything right and you are just downright unlucky that night. I have seen a lot of otherwise quite good poker players throw away a month’s solid winnings in a night of chasing one bad result. The first discipline for any regular or serious poker player is to set upper and lower expectation limits BEFORE you begin an evening of play. It doesn’t matter if it’s $50 up or $50 down or $500 up and $500 down. Whatever your comfort zone may be, set it before you start and stick to it. If you develop that kind of confidence in yourself to hold to your own self-imposed limits and find that you can mange it over the long run, you are ceasing to be a gambler and becoming a poker player. The best poker players in the world year in and year out tend to be names we all recognise. This, in the main, is because they may play “No Limit” Hold’em aggressively but they know and set their own financial limits. They’ll get up and leave, win or lose, when that limit is reached. Professionals play poker for a living. They’ve already learned what “going on tilt” does to your annual earnings. They focus on the game and the odds of all aspects of it which includes control of their own nervous system. Develop it.
